The integrated multidisciplinary European volcano infrastructure: from the conception to the implementation

Abstract

Recent decades have highlighted the increasing need to connect and strengthen the volcanology community at European level. Indeed, research in the volcanology field is highly qualified in Europe and the volcano monitoring infrastructures have achieved valuable know-how, becoming the state-of-the-art in the world. However, the lack of common good practices in sciences and technologies, missing standards, as well as a significant fragmentation of the community requires coordination to move forward and guarantee a trans-national harmonisation. The European Plate Observing System (EPOS) represented the first opportunity to initiate this process of coordination by encouraging the creation of a European volcanological scientific infrastructure for data and service sharing. During the preparation and the design of EPOS, the volcanology community identified the objectives and the needs of the community building, the services to be provided and the work plan to implement the infrastructure. To achieve this aim, the contribution from three European projects FUTUREVOLC, MED-SUV and EUROVOLC was essential. This paper presents the main steps performed during the last years for building the community and implementing the infrastructure. This paper also describes the strategic choices and actions taken to realise the infrastructure such as the establishment of the Volcano Observation Thematic Core Service (TCS), whose structure and activity are described.